A Series on Struggles: Hyperactive Emotions

Number Three:

Hyperactive Emotions

Since I was little I've been a very emotional person. If something made me a little sad, I'd probably cry. If I thought something was a little mean, I'd probably get angry. If something was the least bit happy, I'd probably get really excited.

This can be good and it can be very, very bad. As I get older, I'm leaning more toward it being a very bad thing most of the time. I mean, is it good that I can be happy for people easily? Yes! But more often than not, I get my feelings hurt, I react poorly to something someone says or does, or I misinterpret things and react with my emotions before my head can catch up and it causes pain to either myself or the person I'm interacting with.

I'm starting to hate being this emotional and this sensitive. I keep asking myself why I'm like this. I don't want to be like this. Rather, I want to be able to take a joke and roll with it. I want to be able to brush off insults (imagined or real). I want to be able to be in an exciting or happy situation and not act like a moron. I don't want to cry all the time. I don't want to be this emotional roller coaster, because frankly, it's starting to make me nauseated. All the ups and downs and loop-de-loops are starting to wear on me in a very real way. I'm constantly afraid that I'm going to react to something someone says in the wrong way, and that makes me more tense, which makes my emotional sensitivity that much stronger. It's cliche, but it's a vicious cycle that I can't seem to find my way out of.

I like that I can experience emotions...but I feel like, more and more, I don't just experience them, I let them take me over.

When I was a teenager, I got dumped a few times. Every teenager gets dumped, but I felt like I was dying. I was told a few times that I was acting insane. In retrospect, I was. I was definitely experiencing those emotions fully, but should I have felt them so strongly? Should I have let them have such control over my body? My mind? My interactions with others? That was a decade ago, and I still let my emotions control me that much, if not more.

When Vince and I argue, again, it often feels like I physically won't survive it. Our arguments aren't generally that bad, but if I let the reins on my emotions loose, even a little bit, it's all over. I feel like it's the end. I'm aware of how crazy that sounds, but in those moments, those emotions are true.
Are they valid?
No.
Are they reasonable?
No.
But are they there? Are they almost tangible for me in those times?
Yes.

It all just makes me very tired. Ninety percent of the time none of this is an issue, but those times in the ten percent range--where my emotions pour out of me like lava spewing from a volcano--are so overwhelming and uncontrollable (even the good times) that I know it has to stop.

Recently I've been able to calm myself sometimes by using breathing techniques I learned in yoga. I sometimes practice my ocean breath (ujjayi pranayama) and my equal ratio breath (sami vritti) during times when I feel like sadness, or anger, or panic threaten to overtake me, but a lot of the time my emotional reaction takes me by surprise and causes upset and turmoil in my life.

I hope to use some things I'm learning in yoga (to help calm me down) as well as prayer and creative outlets to help offset these emotional time bombs ticking away in my head. Writing about it helps a lot, even if you all think I'm nutso now. Maybe, now that this too is out there in digital limbo, I can start working toward being a calmer, more rational human being.

Emotional Epiphany

I often let my emotions dictate my actions and words. Excitement, joy, sadness, anger, contentment, whatever it is, I let what I'm feeling decide how I'm going to interact with the world. (Anyone who follows me on Twitter can follow my moods based on the kinds of things I post. My apologies.)

My husband tells me that being a person that is intensely in tune with my emotions is a good thing. Some days I agree--others, I beg to differ.

My whole life, I've thought that there was something wrong with me because of the intensity with which I felt things. I thought there was something broken in my brain--some synapse that fired incorrectly--that caused me to feel so much so often. Whether it was feeling like I was going to die, because a boy broke up with me, or feeling like nothing could ever be wrong again, because my cat had kittens and I was as happy as anyone could be--I felt too much to be a rational, sane human being. Often, these emotions only lasted short periods of time. If a boy broke up with, I was sure my heart would stop beating...and then a few days later, that seemed ridiculous. It was, after all, just a boy, and really, I didn't like him that much. If the kittens overflowed my heart with joy, I was sure nothing could be better. But then, someone I knew would get married, or have a baby, and suddenly that was the pinnacle of joy.

There's no apparent rhyme or reason to my emotional state a lot of the time. It goes up and down with force. As I said, I believed my brain didn't work like a human brain should.

Last night, my husband and I talked about all this. He told me that my ability to feel things so acutely was one of the things that drew him to me initially. (I countered with the fact that my emotional reactions often cause arguments, but I want to focus on the positive words he spoke into my life right now.) When he told me that, for the first time ever, I started to think that maybe I'm not defective...maybe the way that I feel doesn't make me crazy...maybe it's a gift, and maybe there's a purpose for it.

I've always believed that God creates each of us with individual talents, interests, and passions. I've always believed that each person I meet is unique and beautiful. But I've never applied those thoughts to me. Though I believed wholeheartedly that everyone was unique, special, and beautiful, subconsciously I've always thought, Except me. I'm not those things. I'm broken. Maybe I'm crazy, too. Then I'm blessed with this amazing man in my life who says, This thing that you see a defect is something beautiful to me. I love this thing and I love you for, and in spite of, it. 

It shook me.

Perhaps God made me the way I did so that I could experience his full range of beautiful, heart-shattering emotions, and in so doing, be able to empathize with others when they experience these things. Perhaps I this thing that I've seen as a downfall, a major flaw, has always been a blessing that bloomed very slowly. Perhaps this stockpile of emotional baggage that I've added to and carried my whole life is there so that I can draw from it and in some small way, help someone else deal with their emotional stuff.

I don't think I'm the only person who feels things intensely.

I don't think I feel more than everyone else.

I don't think that without me the people who talk to me couldn't get by.

But, I do know that I feel things, in the core of me, when the people I care about feel them.

I do know that when I feel something, I feel it as a real, tangible, physical thing.

And I know that, if I let God work in me, that He can use this as a tool for His glory, 

as a way for Him to love.

My God made me an emotional, empathetic woman, and He made my husband and logical, loving man. My husband's logic helped me to see that the way I am isn't wrong. I can't let my emotions control me, but I can be thankful for the ability to feel things so deeply, and hopefully to be able to use those emotions and the knowledge that comes with them to help someone else. 

I'm thankful for the ability to feel, even when it's hard. I'm thankful that I have such a kind, loving, rational husband, who helps me by encouraging me and not coddling me (despite what my emotion-driven-self demands of him). And I'm so very thankful for a God who loves me enough to make me who I am, and who loves you enough to make you who you are.